


As Loyal A Man

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [71]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23925355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: The Jedi Council orders Obi-Wan to fake his own death.(Edit: accidentally tagged major character death on upload. Now corrected: No archive warnings apply)
Series: Soft Wars [71]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 96
Kudos: 835
Collections: Best Fics





	As Loyal A Man

**Author's Note:**

> For @nos4ay2 on Tumblr who asked for the beginning of the Rako Hardeen arc.
> 
> Edit: accidentally tagged major character death. Sorry! No archive warnings apply

Obi-Wan Kenobi has declared his loyalty to the Vod’alor. He doesn’t realize.

He’s trembling, minute little shudders that shake only his teeth and the ends of his fingers. Rex isn’t sure he notices that either. He’s on that blade’s edge of crisis and walks it delicately. Professionally. How often, Rex wonders, does he stumble up to that edge and stand? How often is he driven there? How often is he the only one available to pull himself back?

Kote has gone to Fox; it will be hours before he returns, if he does at all tonight. Rex is all that’s here.

Jedi don’t know vode protocols. They’re barely taught the concepts of war and certainly never the intricacies. They don’t know how to recognize when a battle has sunk into a mind and has waited, silently, for an unguarded moment to drag you back into the fight.

Jedi don’t know the protocols; or if they do, the lesson wasn’t taught well, and rarely sticks. Kenobi wouldn’t recognize the signs of someone trying to help.

“Can you sit down for me?” Not an order, not an attempt at control. Most vode would respond better to that, but Kenobi isn’t vode, doesn’t know their ways. Rex cannot afford to have him lash out. Rex isn’t able to disarm him, the first step they’ve all always been taught.

Kenobi startles, and for a moment the little twitches of shoulders and knees that gave away his agitation disappear. Rex stills when he does, moves only when he moves. Any stillness could be the moment before an attack or a retreat.

Rex’s hands slowly wrap around his. Enclosed, the trembling in his fingers is as apparent as a quake.

“Oh.” Kenobi stares at their hands. He shakes. “Oh. I’m panicking.”

It’s an imprecise diagnosis, but it’s enough that he knows something is wrong. “Can you sit for me? No don’t go anywhere, right here.” He speaks to him as he would a man freshly roused from night terrors, quiet, even, calm. He gives Kenobi something steady to think about, to believe in, even if all he can believe in is the fact that Rex is sure of his words.

Kenobi sinks to the floor. Rex eases him down.

Rex doesn’t remove his ‘saber, but he keeps his hands. He hopes that’s enough. Protocol has always been very firm: remove all threats before attempting to help. Torrent’s always been good at _bending_ protocol to suit, though.

“Can you tell me where you are?”

For a long, long moment, Kenobi doesn’t understand the question. Then for a longer moment, he doesn’t understand the relevance. His face is lost, and Rex feels his heart break just a little.

“Please. I promise this will help. Please tell me where you are.”

“Ghost dorms.” He says. “Cody’s bunk. Cody and Wooley’s.”

“Good.” Kenobi shakes. It’s a slightly different quality to it, closer to one Rex does like to see. Not there yet, but on the way. “Please tell me two things you see. As specific as you can.”

“Floor. Durasteel, gray. Suppressed reflectivity. Unwelcoming. Is this all we allow the troopers?”

Quietly Rex hushes him, squeezes his hands just enough to catch his attention. “Here and now,” he reminds and for reasons he doesn’t understand, the words make Kenobi laugh something rough and grating. Ugly. Painful. “One more please.”

“Hands,” Kenobi chokes and can’t elaborate.

“Good.”

A minute ticks by marked only by the squeeze of lungs and the thrum of pulse. Rex does not tell Kenobi to focus on his breathing; he doesn’t have to. He keeps his steady, and Kenobi struggles to follow.

The floor is cold under Rex’s thighs. Floors on Coruscant always are.

“Can you tell me where you are?”

“Ghost dorms in the Temple. In Cody and Wooley’s bunk.”

“Good.” Kenobi shivers and Rex shifts his hands, slips them up to squeeze at his forearms. His fingers are light as they pass the wrists, enough to say he’s still present but not enough to threaten. Kenobi turns his hands, clutches back. “Very good. Please tell me two things you hear.”

The smallest smile flits across his face. He’s very expressive, Rex notes. He hides it well. “Ghosts.” There’s a distant cheer, and a round of boos. Ghosts watching some game, living during their downtime. “Not far from trouble. And. The air circulator. Above us, just turned on. Low fan.”

“Very good.”

The circulator runs through its cycle, spits cool air into the room and clicks back to silent. The Ghosts settle into idle background ribbing. They breathe, and listen.

“Can you tell me where you are?”

“Coruscant, the Temple. Ghost dorms, Cody and Wooley’s bunk. Between Cody’s bed and his desk.”

“Good.”

Rex has to push up to his knees to reach, but he keeps the motion smooth as if it’s the most natural thing. He grips high on Kenobi’s forearm, below the shoulders. They’re on the thin side, for a man of his size.

“I. I don’t.”

“I have you,” Rex assures and on only his word, Kenobi subsides, nods. Follows suit, lets his arms clench painfully tight at Rex’s elbows. His fingers still tremble. “Can you tell me two things you feel?”

It takes him longer than before and the effort rattles at his teeth. “Cold,” he finally spits out. “This floor is intolerable.”

Steady pressure, squeeze of his fingers then a press of thumbs into the hollow between his arms and collar. Again and again, predictable motions. Rex does not prompt him to continue. Kenobi knows he needs one more, and he wants to be good.

“You _touching me._ ” There is confusion in the words, and maybe distress. Rex slows his motion, eases up on the pressure. He can’t push too fast or too hard; Kenobi is so fragile.

“As specific as you can,” he prompts. Here and now, he doesn’t repeat what would only bring discomfort.

“Your hands. On my arms. You’re holding me. You’re. You’re warm.”

“Very good. You’re doing very well.”

Tears come. Silent, beading at the edges of his eyes and disappearing into his beard. His shoulders steady under iron control.

“They want me to break him.”

“Can you tell me where you are?”

Long, long moments, and Kenobi cries. Tears are the only indicator. If Rex allows him to wipe them away, there’d be no sign at all. Rex keeps his hands.

“The Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Trooper dorms, Ghost barracks. Cody and Wooley’s bunk, on the floor next to Cody’s bed, with Captain Rex. The Jedi Council wants me to break Anakin.”

“Very good. Thank you.”

Kenobi curls in on himself, too slow, too deliberate to be a collapse. But perhaps Rex should consider it one anyway. It’s nothing, _nothing_ , to pull him fully against himself. It’s nothing for Rex to settle back to sitting, with Kenobi drawn into his arms, across his lap.

“I have you.”

“They want me to-”

“I have you. I won’t allow it.”

When Kenobi sobs it is relief and trust. It’s what Rex took nearly a year to earn from Anakin. It takes so little for Kenobi to give it away, for a promise of stability.

“You will tell ‘alor everything,” he orders. Orders now, because he doesn’t have any doubt that the Vode have Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Rex rides at Kote’s shoulder. “And we will take care of it.”

Kenobi doesn’t have to agree verbally. “Thank you,” he says. He thanks Rex, for the opportunity to follow an order, to have one moment of life be simple.

Rex buries fingers in his fine hair, lifts his head to press together.

“Brothers and children,” he reminds. This they defend. “Aliit1 and Vod’alor2.” Behind this, they rally.

Kenobi closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to meet Rex’s. He carries so much shame, spends so much time swallowed by it. “I haven’t pledged,” he confesses. Rex knows. Cody will never say how much it hurts him.

“We are patient. We can wait. However long.”

However long, until he can bring himself to say the words. But it in the end it doesn’t matter.

Jedi Council Member Kenobi was given a secret mission by his order. His first action was to bring the details to Rex’s ‘alor.

The Vode can wait for him to say the words. They already have him.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Clan. Back  
> 2\. (Author-Derived) Clan Head of the Vode. Back  
> 


End file.
